European Union: Defining and Refining the Concept (Research on Wikipedia)
Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales have founded Wikipedia in 2001. The idea was to create an online free encyclopedia that could be edited by anyone. Wikipedia has grown fast and became very popular among Internet users, especially thanks to Google results including Wikipedia entry in the first results page[1]. Also, Wikipedia use for academic research is increasing[2].
Wikipedia can be seen as the realization of the utopian idea of collaborative authorship. As a matter of fact, potentially every user can make changes in a Wikipedia entry. Of course, activity on Wikipedia needs to be regulated by rules and by the structure of the community, in which valuable and prolific editors are rewarded with a higher status[3] and eventually have a chance to become administrators. The structure of Wikipedia can hardly be considered as an obstacle to the openness of the community[4], for every self-regulated community needs a system to maintain order and avoid anarchy. However, two characteristics of Wikipedia in particular have generated sharp debates on whether Wikipedia can be considered open to participation for everyone and can offer a free environment to collaborate and edit or not. These two characteristics are (1) indications of the presence of a restricted group of empowered users who take decisions and coordinate in advance before presenting their proposals to the community of users (for instance in the forums); and (2) the strong presence and activity of robots (Reagle, 2008).
This last characteristic of Wikipedia makes it doubtful for social/ cultural research. Research directed to the study of the technicity of Wikipedia and the distinction between robots and human collaborators is therefore relevant to determine whether robot’s activity can be seen as a disturbing element in the study of knowledge production on Wikipedia[5]. Niederer and van Dijk among others advocate for a study of Wikipedia focused on the technicity of its content, the way content is administrated and human-computer interactions that take place during this process. They believe that such research can help us better understand how the encyclopedia works and establish its value.
Moreover, because of the growing use of Wikipedia as a source of information, we can say that Wikipedia has a part in shaping our knowledge of the world. Wikipedia can be considered as a system, where a community generates content according to a set of rules and mechanisms. I would say that Wikipedia is both a social system (a social community) and a cognitive system (because it is a knowledge building community). If we take into account Luhmann’s definition of system and the environment that interacts with the system [6], we can consider the online as well as the offline as part of the environment and Wikipedia as a system immersed in that environment. Through the interaction existing between Wikipedia and the environment, the community provides – as a result, a reliable as much as complex portrait of the evolution of our collective knowledge[7]. Nevertheless, Wikipedia needs to be treated very carefully when used for sociological research; first of all, Wikipedia is available in many different languages, which more or less correspond to different cultural environments. It is very difficult, though, to define to which extend a language area also corresponds to a cultural/ social area. The English Wikipedia itself cannot be associated directly with the English speaking countries, for instance[8].
Assuming that Wikipedia is both a source of knowledge (cognitive function) and a mirror of the changes in our collective view on and perception of a given matter (Wikipedia is a system immersed in our informational and social environment), I am interested in how a new, evolving institution is represented on Wikipedia, and how its entry evolves in time. In Europe – especially short after the European elections that pointed out a lack of involvement of European citizens and arose the question whether or not European citizens think the Union is relevant to them, I think it would be interesting to see if our knowledge and perception of the EU changed in time according to Wikipedia. The result of this research can also provide circumstantial evidence to debunk or support my argument that Wikipedia shapes and at the same time mirrors our collective knowledge of the world.
For my research, I will use the entry called European Union[9], part of the English Wikipedia. The reason I have chosen this entry is because English is the first language used to communicate between the member states – although the EU promotes a multilingual approach for the future[10], and because the English Wikipedia can somehow be considered the “global” Wikipedia. It would be doubtless useful to extend the research to all the member states, analyzing the same entry in the original language of every member state, making comparisons between different languages and discover the history of every entry. This approach would require knowledge of all the languages spoken within Europe.
The first choice for content analysis was based on the table of content[11] of the entry. The main reason for this choice is that the table of content (TOC) provides an indication of the chapters in the entry. My aim is to retrieve if there have be any relevant changes in the kind of content that constitutes the entry, and in the way that content has been structured. I believe that this could indicate a change in the perception of the European Union by the collectivity.
Conclusion
At first sight, the Wikipedia entry for European Union has changed from a very concise and naked webpage to a depth description, with many chapters and subchapters and enriched with various photographs, tables, graphics and animations. Also the references and the list for further readings appear to be richer.
The collected TOC changes point out that while in the beginning the focus was mainly on policies and on the history of the Union, the entry was increasingly enriched with sections regarding economic aspects (2003), issues within the EU (2003), the legal and institutional framework (2004/ 2005), demographics (2006), criticism (2006). In 2007 the table of content changes drastically: a “Geography” section is added, “Governance” is also introduced (and institutional framework and legal aspects become parts of it, together with policies), a chapter on “Foreign relations” has been included and a new section “Justice, freedom and security” appears. Also, a new section called “Culture” has been introduced (and further expanded during the following years). In 2008 the section “Development” has been added.
Since 2004 the session “Member states and enlargement” seems to be problematic. At the end, in 2008 the session has been renamed “Member states” and a new entry has been created to keep tracks of the expansion of the Union[12].
When a section disappears, it does not mean that the content has been removed. Most of the times the content is reorganized in different chapters (in the table only the first level is reported), or the chapters have been renamed. Also these changes point out the need to organize an increasingly complex and detailed content apparatus, and indicate more knowledge and interest in different aspects of the Union, those not necessarily related to its institutional framework.
The entry as it appears today seems to describe a geographical and political area that presents strong ties on an economical level, but also on a cultural one (this became more visible from 2006 on, when the section “Demographics” had been added). In the same year, a section “Criticism” highlights the most discussed issues concerning the Union. In my opinion this shows an increased interest in the development of the Union and – for the first time, a self-reflective attitude. This section will be removed in 2007, together with the session called “Current issues”. Part of the discussions will be then included under the sections “Demographics” and “Culture”. I think this is a very important step in the evolution of the Wikipedia entry on the EU. Although at first sight it might seem a step backward, this new change might indicate that the identity of the Union has become more stable, shifting from a discussed international organization to a strong and defined political and economical union, seeking to common policies and shared culture and values[13]. The discussion whether the Union should exist regardless, and the struggle to define the Union (also visible in the fist sentence of the entry that changes in time), seems to be overcome.
In my opinion, the results of this short analysis of the European Union of Wikipedia shows evidence of Wikipedia being an appropriate source for researching the history and evolution of collective knowledge on a given topic. However, to be able to sketch a complete history of – for instance, this particular topic, it would be necessary to take additional aspects into account. The number of languages on Wikipedia that also include an entry on the topic, the extension of the entry for every language, the number of discussions and to which extent the entry is a copy of the international (English) entry are all elements that should play a role for the formulation of more final observations.
In my case study, an analysis of the geographical distribution of the edits would also generate more insight in the perception of and knowledge distribution about the European Union across the member states. Unfortunately, with the tools available at present time, location can be retrieved only for anonymous edits. For future research, I consider to combine cross-spherical analysis with a deeper study of Wikipedia. In such an analysis, it would be interesting to document the treatment of the subject in the news sphere, in the blogosphere and on Wikipedia, both on an international and on a local level. The same analysis could be conducted to see with which topic or areas of interest is the EU mostly associated. Results might reveal increasing public engagement in local issues of other member states or European issues. The same result might emerge for local and international news. In addiction, it would be interesting to research the possible presence, size and topology of a European web.
[1] Google Traffic To Wikipedia up 166% Year over Year. Hitwise. 2007-02-16. http://weblogs.hitwise.com/leeann-prescott/2007/02/wikipedia_traffic_sources.html. Retrieved 30-11-2009
[2] Wikipedia and Academic Research. Hitwise. 2006-10-17. http://weblogs.hitwise.com/leeann-prescott/2006/10/wikipedia_and_academic_researc.html. Retrieved 30-11-2009
[3] Burke, M., Kraut, R. Taking up the mop: Identifying future Wikipedia administrators. Proceedings of the 2008 CHI Conference, April 5-10, Florence, Italy, 3441-3446.
[4] Reagle, J.M. In good faith: Wikipedia and the pursuit of the universal encyclopedia. PhD dissertation. Pp. 70-102. New York University. 2008
[5] Niederer, S., Dijck, van, J. The case of Wikipedia: Wisdom of the crowd or technicity of content? Unpublished ms. 2009
[6] Luhmann, N. System as difference. 2006. Organization, 13, 37-57.
[7] These change need a much shorter time than before to be reflected into our encyclopedic system, since the publishing process on the Internet does not require the same steps as traditional publishing.
[8] As a matter of fact, it might include many cultural/ linguistic minorities that are not represented separately in the community. Also, the English Wikipedia is considered “global” and could be used for very practical reasons by users who do not belong to any English speaking country.
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union
[10] http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/eu-language-policy/index_en.htm
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_contents
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_the_European_Union. This is an example of forking.
[13] This shift is also translated in the first sentence defining the European Union that changes from “The European Union is aninternational organization of European state” to “The an economic and political union of 27 member states, located primarily inEurope.”
